


up for the new buzz

by jestbee



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, Flirting, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2019-12-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:00:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21921811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jestbee/pseuds/jestbee
Summary: Dan remembers getting his ears pierced and how he'd felt so adult at the time, like he'd done something revolutionary and rebellious. But it hadn't been in a place like this, it had been tame in comparison to the type of world he's just walked into with no idea if he's out of his depth.
Relationships: Dan Howell/Phil Lester
Comments: 23
Kudos: 128
Collections: Phandom Fic Fests Holiday Exchange 2019





	up for the new buzz

**Author's Note:**

  * For [obsessivelymoody](https://archiveofourown.org/users/obsessivelymoody/gifts).



> Thank you to my very helpful beta - wouldn't have finished this without you!

Dan arrives early. Too early to seem cool, probably, but the nervous energy running through him drove him here, thrumming in his chest, wild and unrestrained. 

The door is painted black, as is most of the outside, the kind of place he'd never dare approach if he didn't have a message in his inbox confirming the address and the time he's supposed to be here. A time at least forty five minutes from now. 

Still, he double checks, glancing from his phone screen to the name on the building like he could have somehow gotten the wrong end of the stick and be about to embarrass himself. But there is it and all there is left for him to do now is go in. 

The door is lighter than he thinks, and as he pushes on it with far too much force, he stumbles into the building with way more fanfare than he intended. 

It is quieter than he'd thought. There's a wooden panelled desk to the left of a narrow room lined with a bench along the wall on the right. There's a plant in the corner, more textured wooden panelling on the walls, and a floor to ceiling mirror. The whole room has the vibe of a saloon for gothic cowboys. The woman behind the counter looks up at him like she's irritated to have been interrupted by his startling entrance. 

"Sorry," he mumbles. 

He shuts the door behind him with more care than he'd opened it, letting it click and rattle it into the frame. 

There's another guy in the waiting room, sat on the bench sort of slumped down, legs spread. His foot is tapping on the floor, a beat-up pair of vans with rubber soles, but there is no music playing that Dan can hear, only the soft buzz of impending doom coming from the next room. 

"Can I help?" The woman asks, and Dan realises he's been stood still like a deer in headlights for a while. 

"Oh, er," Dan approaches the desk, dropping his voice like what he's about to say is a secret, even though it isn't. Even though if anyone asks him from this point onwards it isn't something he's going to lie about. He hadn't exactly told anyone he's coming here, hadn't mentioned the long string of messages he sent to set it up, or how big of a deal it is to him. He hasn't explained how brave he feels just by making it here, how his heart is beating fast and hard against his breastbone so that he can feel it in the side of his neck and the back of his throat. 

The woman waits, while Dan takes a breath and tries again.

"My name is Dan. Daniel. I'm here for a tattoo." 

"Right," she says, drawn out and bored. She's got a tattoo above her left eyebrow, a date in December four years ago. Dan doesn't want to hazard a guess at what that might mean, a birthday or a date someone died maybe. "Do you have an appointment or are you just a walk-in?" 

"I… uh, appointment. With PJ?" 

Only then does she look away, turning to the computer screen in front of her, numerous rings in her ears rattling where they're threaded through a wide spacer. Dan remembers getting his ears pierced and the sharp ache of it afterwards as they healed. He'd felt so adult at the time, like he'd done something revolutionary and rebellious. But it hadn't been in a place like this, it had been tame in comparison to the type of world he's just walked into with no idea if he's out of his depth. 

"You're a bit early," she says. 

"I know." 

"Take a seat, he'll come get you." 

When Dan takes a seat, it's only a little ways away from the other guy. It strikes him immediately how awkward the silence is going to be, how useless he is in situations like this. He shifts in his seat a little, unable to get comfortable because there's still so much nervous energy within him, burning up in his veins. His leg starts bouncing against the tiled floor to accommodate it. 

"Are you here for a tattoo?" 

Dan's leg stops it's incessant bobbing and he turns towards the voice. It's deeper than he had thought it would be, kind of… nice. 

A nice voice to go with a nice face, Dan's brain supplies before he has time to censor himself. Which, all things considered, is something he shouldn't be doing anymore anyway. 

"Uh, yeah," Dan says. 

'I'm Phil," the cute stranger says. 

"I'm Dan."

"Cool."

Dan nods, and then runs out of things to say. He knows himself, he knows that if he wants to he could let this tiny patch of small talk fade into nothing and he could spend his time in the waiting room in silence, scrolling on his phone and avoiding eye contact. 

But today is a day for bravery, for doing things a little differently for once. And anyway, there has got to be worse things than talking to a guy this hot. 

"You?" He asks. 

"What?"

"Are you… here for a tattoo?" 

"Oh!" Phil giggles, and Dan melts a little inside at how cute that is. "No, I'm here to see PJ, my roommate. He works here."

"Wait, PJ is your roommate? That's who I'm here to see. I've followed him on Instagram for ages."

Dan doesn't mean for this to come out so excitable, to make himself look instantly uncool in front of this very attractive stranger, but that's what happens.

"Really? Weird."

"Is it?" Dan is pressing onward, unable to stop the overly enthusiastic ramble coming from his mouth. "The first time I saw his stuff I was just… He does all these like, crazy drawings, really imaginative stuff. It was like suddenly there was someone doing something other people weren't and I thought… well, I thought maybe he could make sense out of what I wanted."

"And what's that?" 

Dan shrugs, because that isn't something he can put into words so instead he keeps looking at the potted plant in the corner that's starting to wilt, large green leaves turning brown on the edges. 

"I… something that's mine."

Phil clears his throat, tapping long fingers against his knee. "Yeah, right."

"Anyway," Dan continues, "I finally got up the courage to message him and book this appointment like, six months ago. He's super busy."

Phil nods, "Yeah he is. Don't tell him you're a fanboy though, it will go to his head and then he'll be even more irritating than usual."

"I'm not a fanboy!" Dan says, "I'm just… I dunno, I think he's cool."

"He can be," Phil says, nodding, "but he also snores really loudly and makes weird stuff out of cardboard on the weekends so…" 

Dan doesn't ask how Phil knows that PJ snores because that's definitely not his business, but he does ask, "what kind of things?"

Phil rolls his eyes, "you're further gone than I thought, there's no saving you. God, Peej is going to be insufferable."

Dan blinks at him, and waits. 

"Like, rocket ships," Phil says, "I've walked into so much random shit in our living room. There's still a cloud where our light should be."

Dan shakes his head. "Weird."

"Yep."

"Good. I might need weird."

There is silence for a moment, save for the faint buzz from the next room. The girl at the desk taps on her phone and people continue to walk by outside. 

Dan scans the shelves behind the reception, small silver tubs of aftercare cream and decorative trinkets like a cow skull that may or may not be real.

When he's exhausted the room, he pulls his phone out and glances down to check the time. Still ten minutes, why the hell did he get here so early?

"You don't have to be scared," Phil says, startling him. "It won't hurt."

"Sure," Dan snorts, "like you'd know. You don't have one."

The corner of Phil's mouth curls upward, "I didn't say I didn't have one."

Phil does what Dan can only guess was supposed to be a wink, but ends with both of his eyes shutting one after the other. Dan almost misses it because his own eyes are suddenly looking Phil over from head to toe. 

"Where?" He asks, not finding any immediate evidence. 

Phil grins, mouth entirely too wide to be decent. "Wouldn't you like to know?" 

"Actually, yeah," Dan says, "I kinda would."

He snaps his mouth shut right after, feeling his face flood with warmth. 

"Guess you'll just have to find out."

Dan bites down on his bottom lip, shoving his hand underneath his own thigh on the seat. "And… uh, how would I go about that?"

He's a coward for being unable to make direct eye contact when he asks, but at least he asks. It's part of the whole thing, woven into the reasons he's here in the first place. He's supposed to be doing things like this, taking more risks; get the tattoo he always wanted, hit on the cute boy without looking over his shoulder first. 

Still, he can't help but hold himself taut and still as he waits for the response. Taking a risk means not being entirely sure how things will go, and his therapist says that it's okay for him to be a bit uncomfortable still, that sometimes that's what's necessary. 

It's hard for Dan, to step outside of his small, safe bubble, to push beyond his comfort zone. He had resisted at first, saying over and over in therapy that he just didn't think he could take that step. That it was too scary to change things when he didn't know for sure how things would go. 

_Sure,_ she'd countered, _if you don't change anything it means things never change and that can be comforting… but on the other hand? Things never change._

Which, had sounded redundant at the time, but Dan is starting to understand what she meant. 

"You could get coffee with me," Phil says.

Dan laughs, mostly just incredulous that Phil had gone along with his clumsy flirting, because that kind of thing doesn't happen to him. He doesn't randomly meet hot guys and then put himself out there only to have it be successful. 

"Oh god," Phil says, hands over his face suddenly in a gesture that makes Dan's stomach clench with just how adorable it is, "that came out wrong."

Dan goes over the last thing Phil said to understand what he means, but comes up empty handed.

"I didn't mean that coffee would mean…" Phil is blushing, he's flustered and cute and Dan has never been more endeared to someone this quickly. "I just meant it was a good start."

Dan grins, finding some courage in the knowledge that Phil might be just as clumsy as he is at all of this. "You show me yours, I'll show you mine?" 

Phil's cheeks go a little pinker, but he looks up at Dan with piercing blue eyes. 

"But, coffee first," Dan says, "I agree, it's a good start."

Phil's eyes go a little dark. They flick down the length of Dan's body so quickly that Dan might have missed it if he wasn't looking back at Phil just as intently. 

"I look forward to it." 

Dan thinks he's probably going to answer him, to tell Phil he is going to be looking forward to it too. He might even have done something as embarrassing as asked him what he was doing later today just so it could happen sooner, but he's interrupted by someone in his peripheral. 

"Am I interrupting?" 

The guy is tall, round glasses on his nose and a wild mess of light brown curls cascading onto his forehead. 

Dan twists his body away from Phil, quickly. It's a sudden, unintended reaction, and he isn't proud of it exactly, but growth takes time. He might always be the type to flinch. 

Phil doesn't move. 

"Hi Peej," he says. 

Dan looks at the guy again and tries to match up this person with the one he's been messaging, the one with the art style that makes his insides swirl around like they're on display for the world to see. 

"Phil," PJ says, "what are you doing here?" 

"Um, keys?" Phil says, a little sheepish. 

"You've got to stop locking yourself out." 

Phil shrugs and holds out a hand. PJ passes him keys and glances over at Dan. 

"Are you Daniel?" 

"Dan is fine," Dan says. 

"Sorry if my flatmate here has been annoying you."

Dan looks over at Phil who smiles at him and shrugs. The keys rattle in his hand. 

Phil agreed to coffee with him. He agreed to coffee and it's because Dan basically asked him to. Warmth tangles in Dan's chest. 

"He's alright," he says. 

"Okay. Do you want to come through? I've got the final designs for you to look at, but we can tweak them if we need to." 

"Wait," Phil says as Dan follows PJ.

They stop, turn back. Phil is on his feet too, leaning over the reception desk like he owns the place and grabbing a pen and post-it from under the girl's nose. She looks mildly shocked but upon seeing it's Phil, she goes back to her phone. 

Just how often is Phil here, anyway?

Phil jots something down on a post-it and rips it off, holding it out towards Dan. 

"My number," he explains, "for coffee."

Dan thinks he hears a tiny, quiet groan from PJ behind him. 

"Thanks," Dan says. 

Phil grins, all teeth and sharp cheekbones. Dan feels the paper between his fingers and slips it into his front pocket. 

"Well," PJ says, a touch too loud and interrupting what Dan realises is just him and Phil making silent eye contact. "Shall we?" 

Dan takes one final look at Phil and allows himself to feel proud of his decision to take a step out of his comfort zone, before following PJ into the next room, towards the sound of buzzing, to take yet another.


End file.
